Campaign Against Violence Says Anti-Violence Plans Not Creative Enough

biko baker, 02.06.2006 22:46

After Milwaukee’s violent Memorial Day weekend, the community is once again bracing itself for another violent summer. So it’s not surprising that this Friday, after a week of appearances on local talk radio, City and County officials set up press conferences to discuss their plans to curtail the problem.

Milwaukee, WI- After Milwaukee’s violent Memorial Day weekend, the community is once again bracing itself for another violent summer. So it’s not surprising that this Friday, after a week of appearances on local talk radio, City and County officials set up press conferences to discuss their plans to curtail the problem.

Mayor Tom Barrett, whose Safe Summer program has become a feature of community-based organizations like local Boys and Girls Clubs, was visited by Governor Doyle at his press conference. The Governor, who is clearly in campaign mode, promised a million dollars of state aid earmarked for police overtime and youth summer jobs.

Also holding a press conference was Sheriff David Clark , who was joined by several local officials including County Executive Scot Walker. The Sheriff’s plan, consistent with the Republican philosophy, focuses on having a stronger presence in troubled country parks.

Ironically, none of the politicians mentioned that the spike in violence happened just one week after the NRA convention

But while the politicians offered the traditional suggestions, the Campaign Against Violence, offered a different alternative. (CAV)

Demonstrating at Sheriff Clark’s conference, a half dozen volunteers from the CAV held signs reading “More police without more park programs=The same old thing” and “City and County officials use your God given talents: be more creative” that highlighted the CAV philosophy that violence cannot be ended with a fly by night program.

“We aren’t against the police,” said CAV volunteer Jayme Montgomery after the demonstration.” But more police aren’t going to do anything. We need our tax dollars to be spent on more park programs that encourage youth to live less violent lives.”

Below is text from the flyer that the CAV handed out at the press conference.

More Police and Sheriffs in the Parks Won’t Solve The Violence Issue!

Violence is caused by:
1. Preliminary results of a Campaign Against Violence survey conducted between Oct 05-Present highlight that a majority of people living in the city’s most violent neighborhoods believe that violence occurs because neighborhood residents having nothing to do. Spending more of our tax dollars on policing the parks without creating more park programming will only perpetuate the perception that the parks are closed and unwelcoming places.

2. This survey also indicates that the majority of residents believe that the youth in their neighbor-hoods could benefit from conflict resolution trainings. Many of the youth in our city have grown up in very volatile living conditions. No one wants to talk about it, but The War on Drugs and the subsequent high incarceration rate has created a situation where many youth and young adult s have very few role models. Spending more of our tax dollars on policing the parks without creating more conflict resolution programming will only increase our city’s already high African American incarceration rate. (Milwaukee leads the nation in African American male incarceration rate. Black Commentator 2005)

2 Steps to Begin Stopping Violence
1. Spend our tax dollars on culturally relevant park programming. We live in a digital age. We need park programming that reflects the interests of the City’s youth and young adult population. Hip-hop related programming is attracting youth to community centers all across the country. Hip-hop culture is not all bad. It’s about time we start using it to keep our kids out of trouble.
2. We need to have conflict resolution trainings in our schools, at our parks and at our workplaces. Many of the homicides over the last several years have been isolated incidents of extreme anger. We all need conflict management skills to get through our often-hectic lives.


This is not an anti-police demonstration. Good and accountable policing keeps our neighborhoods safe.

Stop the violence with peace and love!

e-mail:: biko@indyvoter.org
Homepage:: http://www.campaignagainstviolence.org